


The Wounding of the World

by BarefootGirl



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, References to Domestic Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-29
Updated: 2013-05-29
Packaged: 2017-12-13 09:11:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/822570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BarefootGirl/pseuds/BarefootGirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Dean Winchester bleeds.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Wounding of the World

He is eight the first time his father hits him. Not a pay-attention-Dean slap during training, or a smack across the rear when he'd been a brat, but an across-the-face blow, only barely tempered for the size differential. He didn't know how to take a hit then, not like that. He hit the ground, the tile cold under his bare knees, hot tears prickling his sinuses but never allowed to fall.

He didn't know how to take a hit yet, but he knew better than to cry.

He is eleven the first time he tried to stop it. He'd screwed up, he knew that. But when his father's hand pulled back for another blow something inside him snapped, and he raised his own hand, not to return the blow but to halt the descent, to turn it away.

That earned him a third blow, and the silent treatment for twenty-four hours. Sammy, confused, huddled close to him, shooting uncertain looks at their father, and didn't say anything either.

Dean never tries to stop it again. He takes the blows and does better next time. If he's good enough, his father won't have to hit him. If he takes it, he's saying "I'm listening. I won't make that mistake again." He knows it doesn't work that way but it doesn't work any other way either and he needs to make it work.

I love you, he thinks when his father looks at him, when the hunt goes well and his father is satisfied, when he - inevitably - screws up and his father punishes him. I love you I accept the lesson don't leave us.

He is nineteen when his father hits him for the last time. It isn't anything he does: Sammy gets between them, yelling. Dad doesn't hit Sammy, his arm jerking back, dropping to his side, staring at his youngest son as though in shock. Something moves behind his father's eyes, and he turns away, leaving Sam to help his brother up, mopping the blood away from his split lip.

Sammy leaves for Stanford soon after. His father disappears a few years after that.

When he and Sam fight, it's full on. They land and deflect, sharp blows placed with lethal precision, always pulling the killing strike; despairing words drawn out in blood and bruisings. They do equal damage, no matter who wins.

 

When Castiel hits him, the skin splitting over his cheekbone, the bitter taste of blood on his lip, his vision going dark, Dean says "we're family."

**Author's Note:**

> This is not the piece I _meant_ to write, when I thought about the way Dean reacted to Castiel's beat-downs, but sometimes the story that shows up unannounced is the one that needs most to be written.
> 
>  
> 
> This story made me cry inside.
> 
>  
> 
> Title source: "If you and I are having a single thought of violence or hatred against anyone in the world at this moment, we are contributing to the wounding of the world." - Deepak Chopra


End file.
